


come out of the things unsaid

by womanaction



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/M, iteration ???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 08:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12362247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: A "first" kiss.





	come out of the things unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> From tumblr fic prompt, anonymous - Surprised kiss.

Sometimes when Chidi is distressed (which has always happened rather more than he’d like), he likes to think of his mind as a ticking clock. A clock is detached, passively recording the slow lurching of time. Its movement is logical: 2 coming after 1, 3 coming after 2, a reassuring mathematical cycle.

(Maybe if he had become a mathematician, he would have been happier.

More successful.

Not stuck here in hell in some sort of eternal loop -  _nope,_ his mind is a clock and it is steadily and logically moving forward in a productive manner.)

Focus. Surroundings: Mindy St. Clair’s house. Companions: Eleanor. Mindy is in the other room, and he doesn’t really want to consider what she might be doing in there. Goal: Finding some way to break this cycle. A plan.

He is not panicking.

“Chidi! Hey, snap out of it.” He’s aware of Eleanor snapping her fingers in front of his face. She looks more concerned than irritated, which is good for her moral development but only contributes to his distress because now he has  _guilt_ on top of the panic (the ticking is speeding up which isn’t supposed to happen, just be slow, steady, methodical-). She purses her lips and frowns at him petulantly. “You have panic face,” she says accusingly.

Then, in one fluid gesture, she moves forward and presses her lips against his.

The clock that is his mind freezes. 

The kiss is - surprisingly gentle, actually. When he’d imagined kissing Eleanor - not that he’d imagined it, except on a purely academic level - he’d thought she’d be overwhelmingly clingy and forceful. But while the pressure of her lips against his is initially insistent, she seems less and less certain as what he assumes are seconds tick by, until finally he realizes she’s slowly pulling away.

And against all odds, without any sort of methodical judgment, Chidi makes a decision, slipping a hand into her hair and pulling her closer. She makes a small, very un-Eleanor-like sound against his mouth. 

After a second she pulls away for air and laughs, not quite looking him in the eye. “I  _knew_ you were hitting on me,” she grumbles, but she’s a little breathier than before and his mind feels clearer than it has in ages.


End file.
